Some days you couldn’t win for losing.
20
Consider a leaf.
Not a terribly exciting thing. Green, generally. Leaves can be pointy, like the needles on your average Christmas tree. Or they can be flat like paper. Some leaves change colour in the fall, and when you were in kindergarten you probably pressed some maple ones between wax paper to make art that you taped to your refrigerator.
In biology class, you learned about photosynthesis, the process by which a leaf takes sunlight, water and a few minerals and makes the earth a habitable place for oxygen breathers. Your leaf captures light photons in its chlorophyll molecules—the molecules that give leaves their green colour. Light hops through a forest of chlorophyll molecules straight to the cell’s reaction centre, where it is stored as potential energy.
While most of the solar panels on people’s houses are inefficient, hovering around 14 percent, your leaf stores 99.9 percent of the light it captures. Light, you see, doesn’t behave like a localized particle travelling along a single route. In your average leaf, light behaves quantum-mechanically, like a spread-out wave that samples all possible routes at once to find the quickest path.
Consider the posted speed limit of our universe: 299,792 kilometres per second.
Or about 186,000 miles per second, for those of you who prefer not to dabble in the metric system. Nothing travels faster than this, the speed of light.
Before Albert Einstein, mass (the amount of matter an object has) and energy were considered two separate entities. In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity, which permanently tied mass and energy together in the simple yet fundamental equation, E = mc2—energy is the equivalent of the mass of an object times twice the speed of light in a vacuum. It takes an enormous amount of energy to make a tiny amount of mass. His equation also predicts that nothing with mass can approach the speed of light or move faster than it.
But in the world of the tiniest particles we can detect, the world of quantum mechanics, things are not so neat. One of the more peculiar qualities is the idea of entanglement. If, for instance, two photons interact, they are changed. After they’ve touched, when one photon is positive, the other is negative. When one changes, the other instantaneously changes to the opposite frequency, even if they are light years apart, seemingly in violation of the universe’s speed limit. Einstein dubbed this behaviour “spooky action at a distance.”
The limitation of light speed, it turns out, mainly applies to objects with mass. Photons can approach light speed because they have no mass. The void, being empty, also has no mass and can expand infinitely instantaneously, as it did during the big bang.
Such a simple thing, a leaf, which relies on a complicated biomechanical quantum process to eat light. You are far from simple. You are a little universe. You are the wet and pulsing distillation of stars, a house of light made bipedal and carbon-based, temporary and infinite. You are also the void.
Cartographers used to write on maps, “Here be dragons,” when they reached places beyond their known world. When humans touch the void, they say, “Here is magic.”
21
When he got home from work Saturday morning, Jared collapsed and slept until noon. His shift had passed uneventfully. The Donut Hole manager had left him alone for the last hour. Jared had worked faster without the old dude hovering. He still hadn’t told Jared his name.
Jared puttered through the apartment. Mave wasn’t around, but she usually did a weekend shift at the clothing store or went brunching with Justice. He didn’t feel like cooking anything. His sense of time felt off. Graveyard shifts were brutal. He made a run for a bagel and large coffee at the Tim Hortons around the corner. On the way home, he found himself scanning the street for David, but what he wasn’t expecting was to see a swarm of fireflies. They glowed, a large cloud above the entrance of his apartment building, circling just under Mave’s balcony, sparking and crackling like northern lights. Sarah.
She sat on the edge of the concrete retaining wall in front of Mave’s building. He would know her lean frame anywhere. That and her giant-ass Sailor Moon shirt. Her long hair was black except for two small, buttery-pink buns curled on the sides of her head. Shit-kicking boots with black marker hiding the scuffs. Her short plaid skirt and the white tights she used to hide the scars from her cutting. She was watching her feet as she kicked them back and forth. Above her, the fireflies sparked and spun.
He let out a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. She was safe. She was alive and she was here. He felt light-headed. Knee-shaking excited.
She looked up as he came down the sidewalk.
Jared stopped in front of her. “Hey.”
She smiled at him and her up-tilted eyes sparkled. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
“Are you?”
Jared crossed his arms over his chest. “Where you staying?”
“Is that all you have to say?”
The fireflies crackled. He forced himself not to look at them, hoping they wouldn’t start spouting poetry or snarky remarks. As far as he could tell, no one else could see them, except Sarah when she was with him and they were stoned or drunk enough. Not even his mom, who was pretty powerful.
She stood. She touched his hand and, when he didn’t pull away, brought it to her cheek. “I almost died and that’s the moment you chose to dump me,” she said.
He pulled his hand away. He wanted to deny it. And there had been circumstances. But she was here and she was the person he needed to make amends to the most and she was waiting for him to say something. “That was one of the shittiest things I ever did. I’m sorry, Sarah. I was scared. I don’t know what I can do to make it right, but I’m willing to try.”
She moved close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, her breath on his cheek. Her pupils were wide black pools and he wondered if she was tripping.
“ ‘And though I have the gift of prophecy,’ ” she said, “ ‘and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.’ ”
“I can’t go there, Sarah. You know I can’t.”
She tilted her head so she looked down her nose at him. “Chickenshit.”
“We fried our brains. We almost died.”
“We were amazing, Jared. When you’re ready to admit it, drop me a line. Later!” She twirled, waving cheerfully, which made him furious.
“We won’t go there!” he shouted as she skipped away from him. “Because we’re done!”
“Love you, too!”
“We’re so done!”
“Toodles!”
He couldn’t think of anything to shout at her and he really, really wanted to shout something satisfyingly ugly, but all he could think of was repeating we’re done, which was lame.
“Exes, huh?”
Above the entrance, just to the right, Kota leaned against the balcony railing, pulling a drag off his cigarette. He was flanked by Patrick and Sponge, who were still holding their Xbox controllers, gaming headphones pushed off their ears.
“What was amazing?” Patrick said.
“It was kinky, perverted sex, wasn’t it?” Sponge said. “Sex so dirty you’re ashamed you liked it.”
“Crazy chicks, man,” his brother said.
They laughed and bumped controllers.
“Ignore them,” Kota said. “They’re horny, desperate and probably still virgins.”
Jared felt his face flush. “You were spying on us?”
“Dude,” Patrick said. “You guys were loud.”
“Heh, heh, yeah, I bet they were,” Sponge said.
Jared yanked the entrance door open.
Sponge and Patrick were waiting for him outside Mave’s apartment. “You had a ménage, right? But I bet it was guy-guy-girl and not the right way, girl-girl-guy, right?”
“I bet it was bondage,” Patrick chimed in. “She looks like she’d like topping.”
“Can you get out of my way, please?”
“I bet you begged,” Sponge said.
“That’s enough,” Kota said, coming over and shoving the brothers. “Get inside, you nimrods.”
Sponge made his voice high: “Oh, Sarah, stop!”
“I’m doing a meeting in an hour. Are you in?” Kota said to Jared.
“Yes.” He unlocked Mave’s apartment door.
“We’re done!” Patrick said. “We’re so done!”
The brothers howled their way back into Hank’s place.
“I won’t ask,” Kota said, hovering in the doorway.
Jared kicked off his runners. “Thank you.”
“But we’re only as sick as our secrets.”
Jared shut the door in Kota’s face.
“So we’re still on?” Kota called through the door.
Jared knocked his forehead against the wood a couple of times, listening to Sponge and Patrick yukking it up. “Yeah.”
“Okay, see you later,” Kota said.
* * *
—
He wasn’t hungry anymore. Thoughts ran like greyhounds, retreading the same ground quickly and pointlessly. He had managed to say sorry to Sarah. She’d sort of accepted his apology. She looked healthy for someone who’d run away from home and for all he knew was homeless. She hadn’t told him where she was living, but it couldn’t be far if she was skipping away so casually. He’d promised to phone Sarah’s mom if he had any news. If his daughter was missing, he’d want to know she was okay. But he didn’t want to deal with it, any of it.
Yeah, and he’d been worried about David. Worried about school. He was making a mess of things. Or things were a mess. He was a mess and that’s why he couldn’t make anything work. To top it all off, he smelled like greasy doughnuts and he had meant to take a shower but now he didn’t want to move. He gave up on the day and went back to bed.
Sometime later he heard someone knock on the apartment door. He didn’t want to go to a meeting anymore. He didn’t want to answer the door. He didn’t want to get out of bed. Ever.
The front door squealed open. Did I lock it? Jared wondered. I thought I locked it.
“Jared!” Kota said. “Shake a leg.”
Maybe if he didn’t answer, Kota would go away. He listened to Kota’s footsteps coming closer until Kota knocked on the bedroom door.
“Go away,” Jared said.
Instead of leaving, Kota came right in. “You coming?”
“No.”
Kota parked himself on the desk chair. “I’ve got the twenty bucks I owe you.”
“Keep it.”
Kota sighed. The chair squeaked as he swivelled. “I’m not taking twenty bucks from a kid with four shirts.”
“I’m tired.”
“Yeah. We can go to a meeting later.”
“Can you give me some space? Please?”
Kota put his feet up on the bed. Jared pulled the quilt over his head. Kota didn’t take the hint. “You haven’t even finished puberty,” Kota said. “And I dumped my grown-ass problems all over you. I’m sorry. Not my golden moment.”
“I’ll go to a meeting if you’ll shut up,” Jared said.
“Deal,” Kota said.
Kota was too embarrassed to go back to Café Calabria, so after the meeting they went to a different coffee place. He ordered Jared a cookie and a latte, saying, “You add enough milk, you might as well drink the real thing.”
They sat on the patio. The latte was good but too expensive. Jared almost wished he hadn’t tried it. Going back to regular coffee was going to be hard. Kota turned his Day One white chip over in his fingers.
“Even half a dozen. Maybe I’ll make them into a necklace,” Kota said.
“One day at a time,” Jared said.
* * *
—
Mave was washing dishes when Jared got home. She turned to him. “Can we talk?”
She peeled off her rubber gloves. They went to sit at the dining room table. Jared waited for a lecture.
“Kota said you’ve brought him to a couple of meetings.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. Hank and I were wondering if you could talk to him about a treatment centre. I have a list here of gay-friendly facilities. We think it could help him over the initial hump. Really get him on track.”
Jared touched the flyers. “You know, they have meetings for family of alcoholics. It’s called Al-Anon. I have a list of times and we can find one that works for you. I’ll even bring you there. We’ll tackle your issues together.”
She stared at him. Her mouth opened, and then closed, and she seemed like she was about to say something, but didn’t.
“That’s what it feels like for Kota,” Jared said. “People aren’t puppets. You can’t work the steps for them.”
She turned to look out the window. The silence continued until Jared pushed back his chair, remembering that she could boot him out any time.
“Sorry,” Jared said.
“Never be sorry for speaking the truth,” Mave said, grabbing his hand as he got up. “I’m not mad. I’m processing.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She let him go. “You’re so thoughtful. And so annoying.”
“That is the popular opinion,” Jared said.
22
The mailman buzzed up as Jared was stuffing his feet in his sneakers, already flustered and angry at himself for having slept through his alarm. He was going to be late for class, and didn’t really want to sign for a package, but the mailman said it was for him and it needed a signature. The package was heavy. It felt like a book. Sophia always sent things that needed to be signed for, so he signed, grabbed the package and ran for the bus, which pulled away just as he got to the bus stop. He looked down Commercial but couldn’t see another bus coming, so he jogged nine blocks up to the SkyTrain station, wishing he’d left the stupid package in the apartment. Especially once he’d jogged up the escalator, shoved his way into a waiting car and then found a seat, panting as he finally read the return address:
Mrs. G. Smith, Ladner.
He shook it. Not a bomb. Not clothes. Definitely a book. He didn’t want to have anything to do with her. He didn’t want to accept anything she was offering. It was so creepy that she knew his address. Cedar’s little visit, he guessed. At his stop, he stood and left the parcel on the seat. But at the door, he couldn’t do it and ran back for it, almost getting stuck in the door on his way out. What would she be sending him, he wondered as he waited for the bus that would take him to school.
Jared was twenty minutes late. All the seats in the back were taken, so he was stuck with a seat in the front row. Struan stopped talking when he noticed Jared, so everyone watched him fumbling through his backpack for his laptop, his textbook and their first assignment. He blushed and he couldn’t look up, concentrating on his laptop screen until Struan started talking again. At the end of class, when Jared handed in his assignment, Struan forced a smile and said thank you, but didn’t ask Jared about Mave. Which was a relief.
While he was waiting for the bus, he texted his mom. Hey. Howzzit goin?
Richiez bro died, his mom texted him a few moments later. We’re in the Peg. His mom shot his bro—she thot he was her ex. Magic fite gone nuclear. I thot our family wuz fucked up.
Holy, Jared texted back. U ok?
Yuppers. Total shitstorm here. Nothing I can’t handle. Richie sayz hi.
Hi to Richie.
Howz Mave?
Bossy.
Ha. Hasnt changed then. Gotta go.
B safe.
U 2.
TTYL
TTFN
He had two unanswered messages. Kota asking which meeting he wanted to hit. An automated reminder that he needed to top up his phone minutes. Nothing from Sarah. Nothing from Crashpad.
A girl asked him if she could sit, so he picked up the package and put it on his lap. It couldn’t hurt to take a peek. If it seemed hinky, he could dump it
in the nearby trash bin. She’d taped it so much he couldn’t rip it open and was slowly peeling the tape when the girl sitting beside him offered her nail file.
Georgina had sent him a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism. The Big Book. Jared had it on his phone app, but he’d never had a physical copy of it. Tucked inside the book was a blue envelope with his name written in careful cursive. She’d taped a one-year sobriety chip to the back of the envelope and surrounded it with hearts.
He handed the nail file back to the girl and mumbled thank you. He stuffed the book into his backpack and then peeled the chip off the envelope. Georgina had remembered. Despite his mistrust, he was touched. He put the chip in the back pocket of his jeans.
He turned the blue envelope over and over in his hands. Buses came and went. People sat beside him and left.
The paper she’d written on was pale yellow and delicate. Her writing slanted right in neat rows. She’d included ten crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Dear Jared,
You left before I could give you the chip, the Big Book, and the money. Congratulations! One year is quite the accomplishment. I have 67 sober years. Each year is a challenge but none of them were as hard as the first. When you live as long as I have, everyone dies and you are left alone so many times. I know the pity ditty well—poor me, poor me, pour me another drink. The money is for your schooling. This doesn’t obligate you to me and you don’t need to pay me back. I give this to all my nieces and nephews and grandchildren for their first year of post-secondary education. If you are uncomfortable accepting it, do pass it along to someone who needs it.
I’m sorry we scared you. I didn’t think you could see as well as you do. Most humans can’t. We will leave you alone. You will never hear from us unless you initiate the contact. I promise.
On that note, please don’t think me presumptuous, but I’d like to offer my assistance if you ever need it. Magic can get you drunk too. You lose the ability to function without it. You lose sight of what’s important and you use until you are spent, and then you borrow. I borrowed. I was indebted to creatures and people and beings you can’t even imagine. If you ever find yourself in that position, please don’t hesitate to call me. You have my phone number. You don’t have to fight it alone. I’m here if you ever need me.
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